


our time will come

by avid_reader1



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 13:24:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4878529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avid_reader1/pseuds/avid_reader1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is an end, there is always an end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our time will come

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. Sorry.

Steve had expected their lives to end in typical, super hero burnout fashion. They'd burn so bright and die so quick, like the stars they so often reach for. 

But this is the truth, and somehow it lies so much more bitter in his mouth. 

Natasha leaves first, and she's never believed in goodbyes, but the slightly-ajar door of her room seems like farewell enough. They never find her, but she finds them; amusing postcards of ridiculously beautiful places and tins of exotic teas for Bruce, which always makes an appearance when the nights get too cold and terrifying, Steve notices. She doesn't say goodbye because, for all it matters, she's never really left. They still feel her in the tower like they used to see her small figure weaving its way in deadly grace. 

Thor is next. Mind you, it takes a while, but while he is a god, those he loves are not. He leaves in desperation, seeking an eternity with Jane, the only woman he'd ever loved. If Natasha is a silent, cold room, Thor is (appropriately enough) a crash of thunder, disappearing from their lives in a blinding flash of light and a blinding flash of teeth. 

Bruce follows. He's not silent about, but he leaves in the way he does everything; in the smallest way he can, in the best way to prevent unnecessary attention. Bruce quietly takes apart all of his experiments, eats brunch (and it makes something ache in Steve's chest, watching the drawn faces and the loud absences in the empty chairs), makes Steve a cup of tea and leaves with a duffle bag of his life's possessions. Bruce hugs him first, give a painfully characteristic small smile, then walks out the figurative front doors and just. Never comes back. 

Clint leaves in a flash of snark and a quicksilver grin, burning so bright in his own mortal way. He gives a loud, "See ya, bitches," and nearly gives Steve a heart attack by jumping off Tony's landing pad and landing on something resembling a flying motorcycle painted in purple flames. Steve is still laughing when he's nothing but a mere dot in the horizon. 

Tony-Tony never leaves. And it takes Steve's breath away even contemplating him leaving, his side on Steve's bed bone-shockingly cold, Steve's ribs quiet without the thudding of his too-quick heart in response to Tony's dancing eyes. But no, thank the God that Steve more often than not neglects, that Tony has found something in Steve that he can't seem to find anywhere else. Steve loves him too much to keep him where he didn't want to be, but he needed Tony by his side. Needed, wanted, what is the difference anymore. 

But Tony's mortal, too. Steve doesn't love him any less for the grey threading his hair, his ever-present goatee, the prominent lines beside his eyes. Tony forgets a lot now, not enough to worry about, but definitely enough to notice. Where's my flamethrower, he'll shout at Steve, while it's in front of him on the table. Things like that. 

But Tony still knows him, knows the way to make his thighs quiver in sensation, even though sex is a delicacy in these times. Steve genuinely doesn't mind, knows intimacy can be achieved a thousand other ways, but this frustrates Tony, with nights where he can't get it up are spent in different places, Tony in the workshop, welding his anger away. 

They never get married, not in the traditional sense at least. But one day, Tony tosses him a band fashioned from some vibranium he'd miraculously managed to scrounge up. It feels weightier, more like a promise than a ceremony and a piece of paper could. 

They don't put on their suits anymore. Tony's too old, more of a liability now, and Steve (still in his perfect body, still 27 in all the ways you could see) is too attached to late mornings with his mouth on the cut of Tony's hips. 

It grieves Steve. That he's bright-eyed and 27, still, while Tony hobbles on flat ground sometimes. He'd never resented the serum more than for this reason. 

When it ends, when the Damocles sword that hung over their heads drops down, when Tony collapses on their bedroom floor with his hand clutching his chest, Steve. Steve breaks. 

He gasps no into Tony's neck, snarling at JARVIS to call an ambulance. When Tony tries to protest, he snaps curses out and tells him to stop being so damn selfish for once in his goddamn life. 

But even as he holds Tony's hand on the ambulance, lies beside him on the hospital bed, feels the breath in Tony's chest stutter in intervals, he knows. He knows an ending when sees one, has seen too many is his lifetime. 

Tony murmurs I love you into his neck, hand curled loosely around his shirt. Steve chokes it back to him, through the lump of tears in his throat. 

When Tony's hand slackens, Steve shatters.


End file.
